Several decades ago, it was common for an insurance agent to meet with prospective customers in person to explain different coverages, costs and answer questions. These meetings allowed the potential customer not only to gain information about the coverage and costs, but also allowed the potential customer to build trust in the agent, and develop a relationship with a specific agent who would service the policy over the course of many years.
In the current era of on-line insurance purchases, potential customers no longer receive the same advantages of the in-person meetings. Many have never seen or conversed with an agent. Also, each time a customer calls, they may be passed to different agents, and never develop a relationship with any particular one. Since there is no relationship, there is little trust in any of the personnel at the insurance company. The customer begins to feel isolated, anonymous and simply a small player in a large organization.
There have been many attempts to provide videoconferencing in a business setting. These usually require proper setup at the business's side, which is no problem, but also at the user's (customer's) side. If the customer is familiar with the business and trusts the business, the customer may allow downloads of software to set up his/her machine for the videoconference.
However, if the user is a potential customer, and has had little experience with the business, (s)he may be wary of downloading programs with which (s)he is unfamiliar. This may be plug-ins or extensions for browsers, as well as entire stand-alone programs. It is now well known that this is one of the ways that malware is introduced into computers. The malware can disrupt operation of the user's computer, as well as possibly, erase data or drives, or turn it into a ‘zombie’ robot that follows the direction of a remote computer, creates and releases viruses, collects financial and personal information, steals a user's identity, etc.
For these and other reasons, a user gets suspicious when required to download software. This does not help build trust, but breeds suspicion.
Other videoconferencing sites require one to start an account with the site. These require information designed to uniquely identify the user. Once identified, the user may be tracked through various websites and information collected on this user.
Again, the potential customer will begin to lose confidence in the business, possibly believing that the business is ‘stalking’ the user through cyberspace.
Almost all the videoconferencing sites require either a download of software, or setting up an account.
There are various software browsers used for communicating with a website. Some of these are not compatible with some video hosting websites. Therefore, if a potential customer tries to use a browser that is not compatible with the video hosting web service, it fails to connect. If the user is not very familiar with networking, they typically give up indicating that the system does not work. In the insurance market, agents typically deal with many who are unfamiliar with video hosting, networking and configuration of telecommunications. Many of these are older people who have little experience with on-line systems. Therefore, it is imperative that the system work with little input required from the user. This is also an aspect of building trust. The systems must be simple, work the first and every time with little input required by the user.
Currently, there is a need for a system which provides face-to-face meetings between potential customers and insurance agents, that is easy to operate, requires little input from the user and does not require risky downloads.